Mozilla Flame Firefox OS developer phone finally ships

Back in May, Mozilla started taking pre-orders for the Flame. This is a handset that's aimed primarily at developers, but also perhaps other people who are dying to try Mozilla's own mobile operating system, Firefox OS.

And now the Flame has finally started shipping to those who've pre-ordered one. It's been a pretty long wait, and despite Mozilla's declared focus on the low-end of the smartphone market, the Flame isn't extremely cheap at $170. It does come SIM-free and with shipping across the world at no cost though.

If you haven't pre-ordered one, you can buy one outright from Mozilla's partner. The company best known for its Web browser is obviously hoping that the release of the Flame will entice more and more developers to create apps (and buzz) for its mobile platform, but in a world so dominated by Android at almost all price points, it remains to be seen whether something like that will actually happen.